Two Frugal Chicks

It’s a rainy day here in the northwest.  A perfect day to hang out and make some yummy things in the kitchen.  Hmmm, what to make, what to make? I only have about a thousand recipes I’ve been wanting to try and I could easily get sucked in to Pinterest for a few hours looking at recipes.  What kept coming to mind, were these individual sized Oreo cheesecakes. Yum! I had everything on hand but the Oreos. Off to Safeway I went, and look at this deal I found.  Not sure if it was one of those Friday only sales or what, but what a score!  The regular size packages of Oreos were on sale for $3.99 (which I think is still too much, regularly $4.79, I don’t think so!).

After looking around at all my options, I discovered these on the top shelf….

So that makes the family size package only $2.50! That’s $1.49 cheaper than the regular size package….but wait, there’s more…look what else I found….

That’s a peelie for $1.00 off of any two packages of Nabisco products.  So I grabbed a family size package of Chips Ahoy cookies, too. So in the end, I paid $4.00 for two family size packages of cookies. I love surprise deals like that.  It pays to look around!

So anyways, back to the Oreo cheesecakes…here’s what you will need:

24 Oreos
2 – 8oz packages of cream cheese, room temperature
1/2 C. sugar
1/2 tsp. real vanilla
2 large eggs, beaten
1/2 C. sour cream
pinch of salt
1/3 C. mini semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 275 degrees.  Put a cupcake liner into each cup of a muffin pan.  Place one Oreo into each cup.

With a standing or handheld mixer, beat the cream cheese till smooth.  Add the sugar and beat till combined. Beat in the eggs and vanilla, then the sour cream and salt.  Fold in the chocolate chips.

Using an ice cream scoop divide the batter evenly into the 24 cups.

Bake for 25 minutes. Let cool completely (if you can wait that long!).  YUM!

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It’s spring and my hens are back into full swing. I’ve been getting a lot of eggs and looking for ways to use them up. I had some leftover roasted vegetables from dinner so I used them in a yummy quiche.I  also had some frozen pie shells that Shelley and I totally scored on. We found them on a clearance after the holidays and had a coupon to combine so they only costs $0.25

Asparagus Quiche with ham
4 Eggs
1 1/2 C evaporated milk or 1/2 & 1/2
1/4 tsp nutmeg
salt and pepper to taste
Sliced swiss cheese
Ham or bacon
Roasted vegetables

Mix eggs, milk, nutmeg, salt & pepper. Add in your chopped asparagus, mushrooms, ham, bacon, (whatever you have on hand) If your asparagus is raw nuke it for a few minutes with a little water just to soften it up a bit.
Lay slices of cheese over the crust. Pour over the egg mixture and bake on 350 for 45 mins. Check after 30 to see if it’s looking set.

Once it’s set take it out to cool to room temperature and serve. I set mine outside on a plant rack for 1/2 hour.

The cheese keeps the crust from getting soggy from the eggs. Yummy breakfast, lunch or dinner.

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I just love refried beans. They are sooooo easy to make, cheaper and healthier. You can buy beans just about anywhere, but I get mine at Winco or Cash & Carry. My husband prefers whole beans so I don’t blend all of them I just add whole beans back to the blended beans for added texture.

In a crockpot I add:

4 C pinto beans, rinse and looked over
11 C water
2 T chicken stock paste (Costco)
1 & 1/2 tsp garlic
1 & 1/2 tsp cumin
1 & 1/2 T chili powder
2 tsp salt
2 tsp smoked paprika
1/2 tsp pepper

I cook on high for 4 hours. I have had beans that needed to cook longer so I think it depends on how old your beans are. I would check after 4 and if they need longer, adjust. Once they’re done you scoop out most of the water and you blend them with an immersion blender or potato masher. Add the removed water back in till the beans are your desired consistency.

You can pour them into ziplocs, lay flat and freeze. They freeze well and are super convenient to have on hand..

Suzanne and I (and my two daughters) visited our parents in Yuma, AZ last week.  While we were there, my dad was talking about Giada, but he couldn’t remember her name and called her Geeder. We had quite the laugh about that and now we will always affectionately call her Geeder.  Recently on the Food Network channel, Geeder was making a Chicken and Leek Cornish Turnover.  It caught my attention because two of the ingredients were leeks and Yukon Gold potatoes.  I had two leeks and Yukon Gold potatoes that came in my Bountiful Basket (if you don’t already know, we LOVE Bountiful Baskets).  Other than noticing that leeks and potatoes were part of the ingredients, I got distracted (squirrel!!), until Geeder was cutting into this beautiful golden brown chicken turnover and wished then I had paid more attention to how she made it.  I looked it up at foodnetwork.com and found that I had all of the ingredients on hand with the exception of mushrooms.  And as fate would have it, my daughter wanted to run to Walmart to buy some makeup and they had sliced mushrooms in their produce cooler, yippee.

This turnover was sooo delicious.  It it what every chicken pot pie aspires to be when it grows up, but with leeks, and mushrooms and parmesan.  The filling was creamy and rich.  The crust was crispy and flaky and buttery. A perfect combination.  Thanks, Geeder! (You’ll notice I doubled the recipe and made two).

Filling:

1/4 C olive oil
1 large leek, white and light green parts only, sliced   thin
1 carrot, sliced thin
2-3 small yukon gold potatoes, peeled and cut into 1/2 inch pieces
1-1/2 C white mushrooms, sliced thin
2 garlic cloves, minced
3 T. fresh thyme leaves
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. pepper

2 C. bite sized pieces of cooked chicken (to make things easier, use a store bought rotisserie chicken – Costsco’s are the best and cheap at around $5!, or cook two chicken breasts rubbed in olive oil and salt and pepper in the oven at 375 degrees for about 40 minutes)
1 sheet of puff pastry, thawed
1 beaten egg

Sauce:

2 T. butter
2 T. flour
1 C. milk
1/3 C. grated parmesan cheese
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. pepper
Pinch of ground nutmeg (use a fresh nutmeg and grind your own, it is so much better than the preground stuff!)

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees and line a baking sheet with parchment paper (I lined my baking sheet with a Silpat – a silicone baking sheet).

For the filling:  heat the olive oil in a large skillet or dutch oven (LOVE my Lodge pot!). Cook the leeks until slightly soft, about 3 minutes.  Add the carrots, mushrooms, potato, garlic, thyme, salt and pepper and cook till tender, about 12 minutes. At this point, my chicken breasts were done cooking in the over, so I poured the juices from the pan into the vegetables, chunked up the chicken and added it to the vegetables, too. I dumped all of this into a bowl, so I could reuse the same pan to make the sauce, which was great because it picked up all the browned bits from the bottom of the pan.

For the sauce:  Melt the butter over medium heat, add the flour and whisk till smooth, about 2 minutes.  Whisk in the milk and simmer, whisking constantly till nice and thick, about 10 minutes.  Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the parmesan, nutmeg, salt and pepper.  Now give it a taste, and do your best not to stick you face in the pot, this sauce is fricking awesome!  Dump in the veggies and chicken and give it a big stir to combine with the sauce.

Roll out the puff pastry on a lightly floured board or table till you have a 10 by 10 inch square.  Transfer the dough to your baking sheet by rolling the dough around your rolling pin, then unrolling right onto the sheet.  Spoon the filling onto half of the pastry and using a pastry brush, brush the beaten eggs along the edges.  Fold over the dough and crimp the edges to seal in the filling.  Brush the top with beaten egg and cut a slit to release the steam.

Bake until golden, about 30-35 minutes.  Cool for 15 minutes before slicing into 4 pieces.

Another thing I want you to know, is that most of the ingredients I bought when they were super cheap and had in the freezer or fridge (chicken, puff pastry, and butter, leeks, carrots, potatoes, thyme from my herb pot, and eggs from my chickens).  That’s what we’re talking about when we say in our coupon class to build meals out of your stockpile.

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